Island of the Blue Dolphins

Island of the Blue Dolphins takes inspiration from a historical figure often known as the Lone Woman of San Nicolas. She was a member of the Nicoleños, an Indigenous group who lived on a small island off the coast of California—San Nicolas—for thousands of years. In 1814, the Russian American Company brought a party of Indigenous Alaskans to the island of San Nicolas to hunt sea otters, and the hunters massacred many of the Nicoleños. In 1835, most of the surviving Nicoleños journeyed to San Pedro aboard the Spanish schooner Peor es Nada. However, one woman stayed behind, and her story became a global sensation even before she left the island. Some contemporary accounts claim the Lone Woman jumped overboard and swam back to the island because her child had been left behind (Meyers, Talya. “What Archaeologists and Historians Are Finding About the Heroine of a Beloved Young Adult Novel,” Smithsonian Magazine, 4 Dec. 2017).

In 1853, the Lone Woman left San Nicolas aboard American otter hunter George Nidever’s ship. She lived in Santa Barbara for seven weeks, then died of dysentery. The introduction to the 50th Anniversary edition of Island of the Blue Dolphins opens with an entry from the Santa Barbara Mission Book of Burials written by Father Gonzalez Rubio. Father Rubio gives the date of the Lone Woman’s burial as October 19, 1853, and states that she was baptized Juana Maria “since there was no one who could understand her language” or learn her real name (i).

However, since 2010, new research has emerged to challenge much of what was previously said about the Lone Woman’s story. For one thing, the Lone Woman may not have been as lonely as people thought. According to these new findings, she was able to communicate with Indigenous Californians and tell them her story. She and her son lived together on the island “for a number of years,” and, unlike the ill-fated Ramo, the latter reached adulthood. Only after her son’s death, which may have been caused by a whale or a shark attack, did the Lone Woman agree to accompany Nidever to California. Many of the archaeologists and anthropologists conducting this research were inspired by Island of the Blue Dolphins, and their work helps readers better understand the history behind the famous novel.